American sportscaster
Ty Tyson
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Tyson in 1930
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Born
| Edwin Lloyd Tyson
(
1888-05-11
)
May 11, 1888
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Died
| December 12, 1968
(1968-12-12)
(aged 80)
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Education
| Pennsylvania State University
|
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Occupation
| Broadcaster
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Years active
| 1922?1953
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Edwin Lloyd
"
Ty
"
Tyson
(May 11, 1888 ? December 12, 1968) was an American sports broadcaster and
radio
play-by-play
announcer.
Early life
[
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]
Tyson was born in
Phillipsburg, Pennsylvania
and he attended
Penn State University
. As a young man, he played baseball and acted in nearby
Tyrone, Pennsylvania
. While acting in a play, he met another young man from Tyrone,
Fred Waring
. The two became fast friends. Tyson spent his early years jumping from job to job, including stints in the coal, wallpaper, and papermaking industries, a time in stationery with his father, and as a mercantile appraiser. In addition, he spent two years of
World War I
in the
U.S. Army
, including eleven months of that time overseas.
Fred Waring, meanwhile, formed his famous band,
the Pennsylvanians
, and began touring the country. After playing at the University of Michigan in 1922, Waring was invited to perform on radio station
WWJ
in Detroit, then just a few months old. Bill Holiday, the station's manager and its first radio announcer, was looking for someone to replace him. Waring suggested Tyson, and Holiday immediately telegraphed a job offer, which Tyson accepted.
Radio career
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]
Tyson handled announcing chores for various events at WWJ, including broadcasting the
Detroit Symphony Orchestra
and the opening of the
Ambassador Bridge
and the
Detroit-Windsor Tunnel
. What he is best known for, however, is his pioneering work on
play-by-play
of live sports broadcasts for the station.
On October 25, 1924, Tyson broadcast the first
University of Michigan
football game aired on the radio.
Fielding H. Yost
had given WWJ permission to broadcast the game against Wisconsin only because the game had been sold out. He was afraid broadcasting would hurt sales, but before the next home game Michigan was inundated with ticket requests. Sensing a good thing, Yost agreed to more broadcasts.
On April 19, 1927, Tyson called his first
Detroit Tigers
game, inaugurating the first full season of radio broadcasts for a
Major League Baseball
team. He quickly became a popular figure with the team's fanbase. When the Tigers reached the
World Series
in
1934
, baseball's then-commissioner,
Kenesaw Mountain Landis
, barred Tyson from appearing on any of the network radio coverage, citing the risk of partiality in his commentary. After Tiger fans sent in more than 600,000 letters of protest, Landis compromised by allowing Tyson to announce the Series locally on WWJ. Tyson went on to call the
1935
Series (which involved the Tigers, and ended in their first-ever world championship) and the
1936
Series nationally for
NBC
radio, and broadcast the
1941 All-Star Game
(played at Detroit's
Briggs Stadium
) for WWJ.
Tyson continued broadcasting Tigers games on WWJ through 1942; the next year, the team granted exclusive broadcast rights to rival station
WXYZ
, with
Harry Heilmann
announcing. For the previous eight years, the Tigers had employed an unusual arrangement for their broadcasts, with Tyson broadcasting to metro Detroit while Heilmann's broadcasts anchored a network that stretched across Michigan. Tyson returned to call the Tigers' television broadcasts in 1947, and shifted back to radio in 1951 after Heilmann developed lung cancer. In 1948, founded the Detroit Sports Broadcasters Association (now the Detroit Sports Media Association) in response to what he considered to be "second-class treatment" toward the broadcasters (by the baseball writers) in the Briggs Stadium pressbox in Detroit, also serving as the organization's first president.
Tyson also called
Detroit Lions
radio for one season (1951), and broadcast the
Gold Cup
powerboat races, boxing, and other sporting events in Detroit. He retired from broadcasting in 1953. On
Father's Day
in 1965, Tyson was invited by the Tigers' then-current radio announcer,
Ernie Harwell
, to return to the booth as a guest commentator. In 2000, the Detroit Sports Broadcasters Association established an annual Ty Tyson Award for Excellence in Sports Broadcasting. Among its recipients are former Tigers announcers
Ernie Harwell
,
Ray Lane
,
Paul Carey
,
Frank Beckmann
,
Josh Lewin
,
Mario Impemba
, Matt Shepherd and current announcer
Dan Dickerson
.
Tyson died December 12, 1968, at Cottage Hospital in
Grosse Pointe Farms
, from an arterial ailment. He was 80 years old. He has been nominated on several occasions posthumously for the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum's
Ford C. Frick Award
and is yet to be named.
See also
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References
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External links
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